NO LICENSE CAMPAIGN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 155, 26 March 1919, Page 3

NO LICENSE CAMPAIGN

THE FIGHT IN AMERICA 7 PROFESSOR NICHOULS'S ADDRESS j PROHIBITION THE ONLY WAY (Extended Report Published by Arrangement.) An accwunt of the liquor battle as it had been fought and won in North America was given by Professor John A. Nicholls, of'Beaton, U.S.A., lecturing in ■ the Town Hall last riiflht under tho auspices of ; the New Zealand Alliance. The big hall held an audience of about aOfl'O people. Dr. A. K. Newman, M.P., presided. - Facts—Not Advice. Professor Nicholls,' who was greoted with generous applause, thanked the audience for the kindly reception. He said he had not cinie here to.: tell ' the people <f New Zealand ■ what to do. They knew well enough what to do, ind no doubt they . would do it on April 10. (Applause.) Ho had come here merely ti tell what they had been doing in his own countryhow they had done it, why they had done it, and the results-c-f well.measures us they had taken to fight the traffic. .

He had spoken much about the liquor. 1 question in many. places, and lie was J glad to use every faculty he .possessed ' for the promotion of t the great reform < lor which lio had given the best years of his life in the hope,that some day the'awakened intelligence of tho-xiviliscd 1 world would abolish altogether the drink s traffic. He was glad, to'..bring to the ( people of New Zealand ''greetings from ( his- own land. He brought greetings ( from, his own organisation and the other i temperance workers, -'especially from the i women of the United States,'who had 1 laboured there magnificently for. .the _i cause. r When the last battle should,have •< been fought against the curse of'drink, i and when some future writer told tho i story, the brightest page in all the long < story would- be that vhich told of tlie magnificent and splendid courage of the women of North America. These fellow- ' soldiers in the great battle being fought ' to make the world a better place to live iii'Mvere watching with intense interest ! to see what the people of New /'en- ' land were going to do en April 10. " ' The Evolution cf Prohibition! He would sketch the story of their < struggle in America to give an idea of 1 how they had surmounted all their difficulties, and had at last won through to . triumph. .Modern temperance refomi was not very old. The first_ organised tern- i perauce society in Norm America was organised 110 years ago, in a town in the.-State of New York. He had been nt that town ten years ago, when, to celebrate the centenary of the forming of this first temperance society, tliey held a ..great temperance congress lasting for ten days, a congress attended by representatives of all civilised nations of the world. They found, then that they had learned something in those 100 years. That first temperance society had not been a very radical society. The members of it had an idea that drink was a Rood thing, and that people could not get along without it. Because thev had this idea they did pot form a very radical organisation. The members /of it signed a pledge, and they agreed not to drink any ardent spirits except on four public holidays. They were allowed to drink beer and wines as much; as they' pleased. They had learned in those hundred years that drink was not a eood thing at all; that it did not promote efficiency; that, men could work better .without 6trong drink; that men could better endure hardship and exposure without strong drink; they had found out. in short; that alcohol was one of the beat things to preserve a man in when he was -dead, but one of the worst things that could be put into him when lie was alive.' They had found that this liquor question was rot one affecting the individual taking the drink merely, but I one affecting the general public welfare. They, had found that alcohol affected a man's power of self-control,' and when a man lost hte no-ver of self-control he was likely to do things'which he would not otherwise do. When a man !<«t lis selfcontrol, he was linblo to do things which were hurtful to others. Some people seemed to think that the question was one affecting the indiviuual—that if a man took drink it was his own business. But tiieVtruth was that a man could not build round himself a wall so high that his life and notions had no effect on persons other, than himself. No man could lire in any. community without his. life and actions having some effect for good or evil. Some men said that drink had no effect at all on them. But science told that the effect of n'coholwcs to paralyse the brain, and the effect of.. It was rapid. It was a narcotic 'habitforming drug. If .a man said' that ■it did not affect him the only conclusion to .be drawn was that he had a vacuum where he shojdd 'have ,grey matter.(Laughter.) No two men responded alike to the action of the drug. Some men- responded quickly, others more slowly, and •the more sensitive" the brain of a man the.quicker would be tho action of the drug. This was why such men of genius as Edgar Allen Poe and Robbie Burns had, becdme victims of strong drink. They had found that the taking of drink was a matter affecting tho general puly lie welfare, and having decided the drink, became at once a nuiblic matter.. If a maiKdid wrong under, the-influence of. drink he had to be sent to gaol, and there he had to be watched and fed. That cost something to somebody.' The' Government paid for-it, but the-only way in-which any Governmont could get money was out of the' pockets' of.'] the. people. The \ people .who did not do wrong had to pay for tho upkeep of' those who did. So the drink became part, of tho concern of the men who did not' ' drink. So they argued that if this drink was not a good thing for the general wel-. fare of society it was proper for the. Government to protect society, and not to protect the liquor business. Some people seemed to have the idea that it was the' function of Government to protect tho liquor business, that the State must not touch' the dram shop, otherwise it. wn's an interference with personal liberty. This'cry of liberty, was one of tho tricks of tho liquor trade. There was no place in the civilised world, except it bo a desert island, where a man might enjoy complete personal liberty. In his -own-- ' city of Boston it had been found that expectorating, on the sidewalk was a mehace to the health of the people, and expectorating on the sidewalk was forbidden. Jbout 100 of the citizens insisted on the exercise of their liberty, and they'expectorated on tho sidewalk, with the result that they were find from five to- tiventy-five dollars. People must not-be misled about tliH idea of completD • personal liberty. Men were not absolutely free tn clothe themselves as

theyj pleaded, or to make what use they pleased nf their own properly. If anyone .doubted this, let him go without clothes and see how ,ionn the le.w would Interfere with his personal liberty! Fallacy of Regulation.

In'tho city of Boston they had set about trying how to ileal with the drink traffic in the best possible way. They started with the premises that there were three , possible principles on which they could'act: (t) Tree hade in liquor; (2) regulation of the traffic, including such methods of resula.ticn as the Gothenburg svstem or' State control; (3) 'prohibition; At the'outset they found that free trade was out of cr.urt. Even V\". men in the liquor business did not wi*it free trade." They wanted to enjoy a monopoly. Society found very early that it ' could not deal with the Honor business in the same way. as it dealt with other businesses. So the city decided in favour of regulation of the traffic, and they had' tried as many plans for the regulation of the trade ::s had been tried in any part of the world. They decided that no man'.must be allowed to sell, v liquor. unless he were a man of good' character, certified to—and in the city of Boston there were some of the queer-, est.certified good characters that could be found on earth! The next determina- . tion w:s that no rami .must sell liquor over a bar, because it was thought that the- selling of liquor in this way promoted drunkenness. Rut it was found that the traffic tried to iireak down this, rule, as it tried to break down'every measure teltpn to regulate it. The rule was that drink had to be s sold like any other refreshment. 'But it'was found that this method of sale increased drunkenness. Then some wise man came along

with, the suggestion tha.t men drank move because tiiey took tliair drink sitting down, .that driakinp; was a social ; habit, and that men stayed longer because they sat down. So it was decided, to make men lake thiiir liquor standing up- At ' the . end of a period another count was taken of the number of cases of drunkenness, and they found that there were more .airests for drunkenness when men took their drink standiug up than lucre Had been when they took it sitting down, 'limn it was suggested that tno reason wby men got drunk was because they were allowed to drink away from public viowv A law was passed requiring that swiens should be taken out of the windows of liquor shops, to give r. clear uninterrupted view from the street into the' saloon. They had another count up, and they found that the number of arrests was still, increasing. Another wise man had come along, and had said that the reason of the failure was that the dram ships had back doors. Ho said: "Shut up the back doors." They got the back doors shut, making it illegal for any dram ahopT occupant to nave a back door entrance in his State. They found after all that'tho arrests for drunkenness had increasod. Someone said that Hie root of the troublo was that the trade-w-io not compelled to pay enough money. It should bo compelled to pay higher license fees, as 'these would, put the running of the business on more careful lines. lie did not "Kimble for' that, although he had "tumbled for .some of the other proposals. He figured that the sellinsr"of.. drink was a commercial proA man sold drink to make jnoneyi'.a'mT the moro money he had to hand over,, the ranre lmsineavhe had to do in order.'to make his ventures pay. Tho "Good Customer." If there'was a system, he said, that had no common sense m it, it was the system by which the Stato legalised the drink traffic. The liquor was made under Government supervision, Hie Government supervised the making ot. dviiu more than anything else.. A Government officer was paid to supervise it, and atter the stuff had been made under Government supervision, a special privileged ."class was set up.to sell.it. ,A license was not a right, it was a privilege. \\ oil. a man went alow: to have'ft drink, and one drink led to another. Tim result, as he had seen it in his city of Boston, was that if; tho man was a good customer, he finally fell into the hands of a policeman (if 'the policeman had nothing else to do), aud the policeman took him.T.lons in a rubber-tyred vehicle to the police station. The Judge looked at him next morning and fined him. If he had. no money he might be sentenced to thirty days'' imprisonment. He .got another free ride to flic docks, was ,put on a Government steamer, and was conveyed to an island, put in a good buildinir. and watched over for thirty days, \\liat had he been guilty of? • He had simply been a Rootl - .customer of a man the State had authorised to sell tho liquor' which it had authorised another man to make. The taxpayers had to take care of iV man who, but for the liquor traffic,, would nave taken care of himself. There was ]as much commonsehse in a system unuer which that, sort of thing happened as there would be in a system, under .-which the State authorised a man to go joniiu givin" people the itch and then locked up a man for scratching himself. The proper thing was not to lock up a man when, he had drink inside him, but to lock, up the drink before it got inside a man. More Attempts, \ . The high license policy was, at any rate, -introduced. In his State they adopted the highest license system m the world.. Next year it was found that moro money had been collected from the liquor traffic in the twelve months then ended than had ever before been cellected; but. it was also discovered tuat there, had been no period in the history of tho State from the tim* at which, the Pik grim Fathers landed, when the, arrests for drunkenness had increased ao rapidly. Then they adopted another methodthai of local option on an extensive scale. Each year a vote upon the question of liquor .was i.old at the municipal elections.' On tho ballot-paper the question hadMo bo placed: "Shall licenses be granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors in the city during the comm? veai—yes or no?" If the majority voted '"No,"' or if there v&s a tie vote, no license could be eranled; if the majority voted "Yes," licenses were granted. Idiots, the insane, <nd women were not allowed to vote in the .Slate. New Zealand had gone ahead of America in that respect, and no doubt America would have been much-better off if the women had had more of a 'hance to take partin flie municipal house-keeping. In America, lo'-nl option and prohibition had been tried side by side. Across the river from the city.in which he lived was another city—one ...with a great history. 'It was the peat of ; Harvard itlni.versify, and other "famous institutions, 'and was in many respects a.most remarkable place. " For ten years, the people had voted each, year in favour :of license. l The license system was fair- ! ly tried. After ten years,, tho people had voted. "Nq" by a small majority. The next; year they had voted in_- the same.' way-, by an. increased majority,' t and in the year following that by a greater majority still. They hhd kept ! on voting "No" for another ten .years, and had ten years f of.local prohibition. They had; thus been able to compare tho two; systems and their results.. Statistics.

He would quote to the audience figures gathered not by any temperance crank, ■but.collected by the' Massachusetts State Bureau of Statistics. These figures might lie' contradicted, but they could not bo disproved. They showed that during the ten years of license the population 'increased by 11,820, and Ihat during the ten years of no-license it increased, by 21,935. or about twice-as much. The reason was that most people liked to live in a clean city, and many believed that it was wiser to live in a dry city than in a wet. one. -The greatest vendor of liquor in Montreal preferred to live not in' that cit.v, but in a prohibition muni-, cipality. During.tho ten years of license 15SA new houses were built. During tho

next, ten years 3325;n«w houses went up, They stonped.building palaces for brewers niid started building houses for the people. • The valuation of the city decreased during the .'license .period, and increased during tho no-license period. The average increase m savings bank deposits .under license was 155,33,3 dollars, and during tho next ten years, after the people lad stopped putting their money in the "losings bank," the average increase was 3CB,GSi dollars; so that for every dollar put into the .savings-bank in tho first ten,years more than, two were put in in the next ten when the .dramshops were closed:'. That city found out how the two systems workedi An era of "prosperity came to it. The citizens said that they would celebrate the event, and the? one day declared a public holiday and fired a salute of twenty-ono guns in honour of it. Ten thousand children:paraded' tho streets, with the .bands'playing and.>onners and badges displayed, and were reviewed by the City Government." A great .mass meeting was held in tho evening, and on the platform were representatives of every religious 'body in the city of Cambridge. Sine.' that time -the' people of'the city had'had seventeen years in which to make up their minds as to what they oi.ght to do. Whatever might be said about Americans it could not be said that they were fools. They -hid irre.it rivers, great mountains, great bluffers and great liars. He really thought they had great bluffers and great liars, but he wanted to say that if New Zealand had any liars that could beat the American liquor liars, then this country possessed the champion liars of the world. The people of Cambridge would have lien th.e greatest fools on earth if thev had kept on adopting for sevenleen vears the system that they had f'»i'id'tn 1'" a failure. After givinir each system a ten-years' trial, thoy had during the following years put by increased majorities tho seal of (heir condemnation upon the liquor traffic.

A National Rcfornn The next discovery made was that a dry .city was injured by a wot city; so coiintv prohibition was started. But it was t'ouiid that a wet county hurt a dry county; so Ste.tc prohibition was started. A wet State, however, 'hurt a dry State, and something had to bo done to get control of the liquor,when it crossed the State line of prohibition States. For years nothing could bo done, The matter was held up and pigeon-holed. At last, however, a Bill cf the desired nature •was passed. It was made illegal In transport , liquor v into dry States, and even to carry liquor advertisements :into dry States. Then the prohibitionists found out that the niat-

tor was one affecting not the States i alone, but the whole nation; that so long ns wet States remained, they would have to suffer the liquor traffic, which was retarding advancement, and in every ■respect" proving'a' mighty' obstacle blockinff tho path of progress. The only remedy equal to the ease was a national remedy, and,that was not an easy thing to get. Congress had limited powers, and the President limited powers .also. They had onlv such powers as the States had' delegated to them, and Congress had not the power of passing n prohibition law for a State. It could shut the dram shops up only in territory under direct national control. -A idmngc in the constitution of the United States was necessary. At last the necessary amendment was got through, and sent to the various States for ratification, ihe. States were given seven years in which to ratify, and if they did. not ratify, the amendment fell to .the ground. If the liquor people could prevent thirteen Strifes from ratifying they could .stop national prohibition. The prohibitioni«ts started on their seven "-years long I 1-j.aj], The lecturer proceeded the order in which sonic of the States ratified the amendment. , , He told how one by..one all the Stntos of the Union, with the exception of the small States, had ratified, .before he left to come to New Zealand, nod for anything he knew these three States might have done so ere this. This meant that on .Tanuarv.lß next th's prohibition Amendment of the Constitution of the United States would come into operation, and it would prohibit absolutely the- manufacture. -> : ale.- importation, or transportation of intoxieating liquor on e-serv -portfon of Hie soil of the United States.

Prohibition a Success. But even -move t'him this..had been done. On Septembers, 1917, the misnt of tho 'United States made it an ofience at law to manufacture a drop oi aident spirits in America, and since then not a drop had been manufactured. The reason for this,.step was to enab e America the .better to feed the people of 'Great- Britain' and the Allies. (App!&use.)'.:"Since..lJecenil)er 1 no beer lias been made. They were now using up nrlv the- old stock, which must bo getlinn pretty nearly exhausted. And another' law had been passed declaring that on July 1 every drum shop in the .United ■Mates would closo during the period when the men wei-e being demobilised from the'' Army. On July ,1 the aua would shine on n land emancipated from the thraldom of Ihe drink scourge. I lie pfople of the United States had decided thatthev would build no more breweries and distilleries because they did not want to build anv.more prisons and penitentiaries', because they wanted the boys and girls of the future to fight the battlt of lite without the handicap ot drink, because ther-wanted; every man to grow mi safeguarded by law from a traihe which could not exist anywhere for a single day without adding to..the sum ot .human misery :ind Iranian sorrow. He read to the audience a letter he had received from the Governor of the State of Maine, the oldest prohibition State in the Union. The Governor ot the State, who was born in Maine, Mid: "The conditions with regard to' prohibi-t-on were never .better than, at the present time in Maine, and the /sentiment of the people in .favour of national prohibition was never so strong as .it is today." He had-like testimony from, tho Slate ,of Kansas, including a: resolution passed unanimously by tin Legislature of that State to refute the calumnies published by .the liquor trado about tivjir State. Ho was prepared to say of his own knowledge that wherever prohibition had come into force it-had reduced crime;it had improved the moral and material well-being of the people, aud it had increased their happiness. It ■-' was proved Id be .infinitely better than any system ' of- regulation that had yet been devised, for no effective method of regulating a dram shop had yet. been I devised 'by the brain of man. It was not ! possible to put a dram shop anywhere, even in charge of the best men on earth, without adding to ■ human misery and human sorrow. It was not the man or the manner of his selling of the liquor that was the trouble; the trouble was m the tjtuff that he sold. If drink were sold bv the most godly Presbyterian in Scotland over a bar of gold, in a cup s-tud-ded with jewels, it .would blast a. reputation or bring'a curse to a ; home just as. surely as if-it werosold in. a bact room out of a Prohibition Ml been a success in every' piift'M :thc .United States in which it had been tried. They had adopted it because they wanted the Hag for which men had shed thenblood to wave a stainless flag over a stainless land, a land in which there was ho drain shop, a land free from the scourge of drink. Ho was sure that in no part of the United States would drink ever have another chance of working evil. Ho was going-shortly, to Scotland to take part in a great educational.campaign thi!re. The Dominion' of * Canada had gone dry,, and ftlie people: of that great British Dominion wore watching to see what the Motherland was going to do about the traffic. ,

The Worst Enemy. . He 'heard the. spsec'b. in ■which: Sir Edward Grey foreshadowed the.' policy of the British Government inside the following twenty-four nouns war was declared. He stayed in. England for two months. He left, sad at heart, because the drink traffic was doing its deadly work, and drunkenness was increasing among the women. He went back to England three'years later, and .'he'found a change. Sometimes nations' learned things in the hour of a great crisis. ..The nation's Attitude towards the drink traffic was changed', and liqnoiv.jwis being sold for fev/e." hows during tiie day. The ! Government had been compelled to take action apinst tho drink—the one unpatriotic thing in the country- . The i greatest, petition, in point of-influence, over presented In the Btitislv Parliament, | was nre.wnted by people w'ho nsked for | prohibition during the period of thel war-] and of demobilisation. The Government ! replied that it could not grant the w- i finest—tbat tho workers would "down j t<M>le" if it did. One of the'bwt-know.n I of the workers' representatives therennor. ! dechrwl in the H«use of Commons that j lie regarded the statement that workers | would down Ms and go on strike/ for •1:'?"'" rathe,' than sa'-e . th-v country fls •' an insult t" ■ all 'CV woi'lcr? of ■'■ Great Britain. He said that there wits only one way to find out what tbirworkers;desired, and:'' that was to hold'a plebiscite and let them sneak for themselves. The Government did not accept the challenge, but the workers' in many of the greatest centre? themselves took plebiscites and decided by largo majorities in favour of war prohibit tion. If the drink traffic was unpatriotic | on American soil it was unpatriotic on British soil nlsd. The liquor people cared for nothing but their business, and the Government of the United States was investigating the nctiomof the. Brewers] Association in certain unpatriotic dealings, In Great Britain the'people were watching New Zealand to see what, New Zealand was doing. He hoped that on April 10 New Zealand would send out a message, of hone to the Old Land. ■ Dark clouds sometimes bung heavy over the Motherland, but throngh the da.rkness_he could see the sunbeam of hope and joy. . He ijiayed that when the votes were counted the' (slnd-wingcd anßels" of Temperance would enrrv the news heavenward that New Zealand had put the seal of her condemnation upon the traffic, and had joined with Canada and the United States in tho great forward march for the uplift and betterment of mankind. (Loud applause! , j,

Conclusion, | Captain Hawkins,' N.Z.K.F., proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker. In doing so ho threw out a challenge to Mr. Armstrong and the Moderate League to meet him on any public platform to debate the question of whether prohibition increased crime in any part of "Mew-'Zea-land where it was in force. It had been stated by Mr. Armstrong thai crime liad been increased 32 per . cent, since the coming- of prohibition in New Zealand in those parts which had declared for prohibition. He characterised the statement in very strong terms. And then he said that the truth was that i.n one inland town of 1100 inhabitants in this country there were more'persona convicted fhan in all the no-license electorates containing 87,000 people. He was prepared to make a wager of .£lO with any member of the Moderate Leaguo on" the truth of his assertion. The vote was seconded by a soldier in the audience, and carried by acclamation. , .;, . , The meeting concluded with the singing of the National Anthem.